Human Factors (HF), an extremely broad term used to describe several
areas of study, includes but is not limited to human performance,
human-centered design and human-computer interaction. The Human
Factors Society defines HF as the characteristics of human beings
that are applicable to the design of systems of people, machines
and environments. The overarching concern with HF is our society's
increasing interdependence of humans and technology which warrants
greater consideration for the human equation on systems design,
implementation and evaluation in order to optimize efficiency, usability
and most importantly acceptance by users. While advancements in
human centered design are growing in acceptance every day, HF interventions
have traditionally neglected the specialized needs of the elderly.

With origins in the industrial revolution, HF considerations eventually
took root as a discipline during World War II with the mission critical
objective to design safe, functional, and user-friendly airplane
cockpits. Today, the most prolific research and development advancements
in HF continue to reside in areas with the highest catastrophic
potential such as aircraft and automobile design, air-traffic control
systems and nuclear power.

While historically HF principles have been used to inform hardware
design, there is now widespread overlap into human computer-interface
design and its function. Donald Norman (1990) chronicled the importance
of good HF design in his book Design of Everyday Things by drawing
attention to the human centered design of a variety of commercial
products. HF principles are now achieving wider commercial implementation
in the form of "user-friendly" or human centered design,
especially in the high tech arena. As evidenced by many useful yet
failed products, such as early hand writing recognition systems,
companies have come to realize that feature rich products with a
lot of bells and whistles are no longer enough to produce and market
a successful product.

David Meister (2004) goes beyond the basic conceptual level in
his book "Conceptual Foundations of Human Factors Measurement"
by defining HF as a behavioral discipline that is a direct descendent
of psychology that is also as well as an engineering and system-oriented
discipline, calling it a "hybrid of two parent disciplines."
The HF disciplines are unique from behavioral psychology, however,
in the fact that HF is concerned with the effect of behavioral input
on some physical equipment with a transformational result. Unlike
psychological studies in human behavior, HF is also concerned with
the tasks and goals that are inherent in larger complex systems
(Meister).

Meister emphasizes that HF research, design and implementation
can be successful only when the focus is placed on the entire system
that is being evaluated. "All humans are part of a system and
are controlled by the system in some way how well the human
performs as a systems element determines in some measure how well
the system performs" (Meister, 2004). It is the system's symbioses
between humans, machine and environment that we need to focus on
warns Meister.

With this in mind, HF design interventions can and will be very
useful in the design of modern communication tools for the elderly.
In the coming years, driven by the market force of 70 million baby
boomers "coming of age," the communication industry will
learn some valuable lessons creating successful systems. While adoption
of accessibility guidelines are well on their way, there is plenty
of room for further HF design considerations in designing effective
communication tools for the elderly. While training will continue
to be an effective tool, user-centered product design will become
perhaps even more important in order to facilitate a widespread
adoption of rapidly changing, advanced communication tools.

Neil Charness points out in his article, "Aging and communication:
Human Factors Issues," that just by examining the most apparent
statistics of chronic conditions in the elderly can shed quite a
bit of light on the product design needs of the elderly. Figures
for the percentage of women who suffer some level of limited psychomotor
function such as arthritis indicate that traditional input devices
such as computer mice and keyboards will not prove effective players
in a symbiotic communication system. Equally, on the men's side,
hearing degradation does not bode well for products that hope to
rely solely on audio transmissions as the prominent communication
medium. With regard to vision, the typical 65 year old eye admits
1/3 of the light to the retina in lower light conditions than an
average 20 year old eye. The implications on the effectiveness of
current LCD and VDT display technology--that typically emanate less
contrast ratio than is needed for many seniors-could have staggering
implications for the high tech industry (Charness, 2001).

On the cognitive level, HF systems design interventions will need
to consider a wide range of issues with regard to the elderly. This
includes relatively minor issues such as a person's reduced capacity
to process and store information in loud environments to how to
handle the dementia that characterizes diseases like Alzheimer's
and to some extent Parkinson's. On an emotional level, and just
as critical, is the inability of older people to rely on the interpretation
of body gestures and facial expressions to receive information because
of a variety of ailments but also because of the current quality
of video conferencing transmission (Charness, 2001). While it may
be considered a foregone conclusion that bandwidth concerns will
solve any future quality concerns, optimism of the future alone
may not necessarily encompass the needs of people with poor eye
site or greatly reduced psychomotor capabilities. Charness does
point to the success of two programs in Germany and Portugal that
used a television-based video conferencing system to facilitate
communications between doctors and elderly patients.

Despite a few successful programs, discussions on HF design for
the elderly is more about what can and should be done rather than
what is being done (Spiezle & Molton, 2001). With that being
said, there are many people, working in a variety of disciplines
to make things easier for the elderly. A recent discussion with
Seattle Occupational Therapist, Tatiana Kaminsky --who conducted
graduate work at the Human Interaction Technology lab (HIT) at the
University of Washington--proved revealing regarding HF interventions
for the elderly. While she admitted to improvements in ergonomically
designed products for our aging population she acknowledged the
problems described above regarding PC-based communication technologies
such as email, text messaging. She added that newer developments
in video conferencing have proven difficult for many older adults
with typical visual impairments. Kaminsky laments that the "Windows-based
software actually made things worse, since the Windows GUI requires
more physical and sensory skills than DOS did. Plus, Windows makes
it challenging for some assistive software packages to work, especially
for people who have visual impairment." Performance improvement
specialists can learn from the work being done by occupational therapists
as they strive to improve the life quality of the elderly through
a variety of physical, emotional and psychological interventions.

Improvements in human-centered design are starting to become more
common place in some industries-high tech in particular- even while
many industries continue to cling to the "shoot first and ask
questions later" approach to product design. While there is still
wide disagreement among the many disciplines regarding the proper
approach to HF interventions, efforts are being made to find common
ground with best practices. Web Accessibility efforts like W3C's Web
Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 and Microsoft's Effective
Web Design Considerations for All Ages have proven effective in
encouraging wide adoption of usability standards that hint at greater
things to come for the needs of the elderly and people with disability.